2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25
Did you decide to paint or paint furniture? But don't know how to get different shades? Paint mixing charts and tips will help you do just that.
Basic concepts
Before you start studying paint mixing tables, you should familiarize yourself with some definitions that will make it easy to understand a new material for yourself. The words used in the theory and practice of blending shades are explained below. These are not scientific encyclopedic definitions, but transcripts in a language understandable to an ordinary beginner, without the presence of complex terminology.
Achromatic colors are all intermediate shades between black and white, that is, gray. In these colors there is only a tonal component (dark - light), but there is no "color" as such. Those where it is are called chromatic.
The main colors are red, blue, yellow. They cannot be obtained by mixing any other colors. Those that can are compound.
Saturation - a characteristic that distinguishes a chromatic color from an identical lightnessachromatic hue. Next, consider what a paint mixing table for drawing is.
Spectrum
Color mixing charts are usually presented as a matrix of rectangles or squares, or as shade combination schemes with numerical values or percentages of each color component.
The underlying table is the spectrum. It can be depicted as a stripe or a circle. The second option is more convenient, visual and understandable. In fact, the spectrum is a schematic representation of a beam of light decomposed into color components, in other words, a rainbow.
This table contains both primary and secondary colors. The more sectors in this circle, the greater the number of intermediate shades. In the figure above, there are also gradations of lightness. Each ring corresponds to a certain tone.
The hue of each sector is obtained by mixing neighboring colors in the ring.
How to mix achromatic colors
There is such a painting technique as grisaille. It involves the creation of a picture using gradations of exclusively achromatic colors. Sometimes brown or another shade is added. Below is a table of mixing colors for paints when working in this way.
Please note that when working with gouache, oil, acrylic, a grayer shade is created not only by reducing the amount of black, but also by adding white. In watercolorprofessionals do not use this paint, but dilute the color with water.
How to mix with white and black
In order to get a darker or lighter shade of the pigment that you have in the kit, you need to mix it with achromatic colors. This is how gouache works, mixing acrylic paints. The table below is suitable for any material.
Kits come in different numbers of ready-made colors, so compare what you have with the shade you want. By adding white, you will get the so-called pastel colors.
The following shows how several complex colors are graded from very light, almost white, to very dark.
Mixing watercolors
The table below can be used for both glazing and single layer painting methods. The difference is that in the first version, the final shade is obtained by visually connecting different tones superimposed one on top of the other. The second method involves the mechanical creation of the desired color by combining pigments on the palette.
How this is done is easy to understand by looking at the first line with purple tones in the picture above. Layering is done like this:
- Fill in all the squares with the light tone you get with a little paint and plenty of water.
- After drying, the sameapply color to the second and third elements.
- Repeat the steps as many times as needed. In this version, there are only three color transition cells, but there may be more.
When working in the technique of glazing painting, it is worth remembering that it is better to mix different colors in no more than five layers. The previous one must be well dried out.
In the event that you prepare the required color immediately on the palette, the sequence of work with the same purple gradation will be as follows:
- Cover the color by using a wet brush with some paint. Apply to the first rectangle.
- Add pigment, fill in the second element.
- Dip the brush back into the paint and make a third cell.
When working in one layer, you must first mix all the colors on the palette. This means that in the first method, the final shade is obtained by optical mixing, and in the second - mechanical.
Gouache and oil
Techniques for working with these materials are similar, since the pigments are always presented in the form of a creamy mass. If the gouache is dry, it is pre-diluted with water to the desired consistency. White is always present in any set. They usually run out faster than others, so they are sold in individual jars or tubes.
Mixing oil paints (table below), like gouache, is a simple task. The advantage of these techniques is that the next layer completely overlaps the previous one. If you make a mistake and after drying you don’t like the resulting shade, make a new one and apply itabove. The previous one will not show through if you work with thick colors, without diluting them with liquid (water for gouache, solvent for oil).
Paintings in this painting technique can even be textured, when a thick mass is applied pasty, that is, in a thick layer. Often, a special tool is used for this - a palette knife, which is a metal spatula on the handle.
The proportions of paints to be mixed and the necessary colors to obtain the desired shade are shown in the previous chart-table. It is worth saying that it is enough to have only three primary colors in the set (red, yellow and blue), as well as black and white. From them, in different combinations, all other shades are obtained. The main thing is that the colors in the jar should be exactly the main spectral tones, that is, for example, not pink or raspberry, but red.
Working with acrylics
Most often these paints work on wood, cardboard, glass, stone, making decorative crafts. In this case, the mixing of colors occurs in the same way as when using gouache or oil. If the surface has been pre-primed and the paints are suitable for it, obtaining the desired shade is not difficult. Below are examples of mixing shades with acrylic.
Acrylic paints are also used for painting on fabric (batik), but they are sold in jars of liquid consistency and are similar to printer ink. In this case, the colors are mixed according to the principle of watercolor on the palette with the addition of water,not white.
If you understand how to use paint mixing charts, you can easily get an unlimited number of shades when working with watercolors, oils or acrylics.
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